ORCID Profile
0000-0002-9189-3187
Current Organisations
Flinders University
,
AngelWings Ltd
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Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 12-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S13644-022-00521-1
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic introduced disruption that crossed sectors, borders, and disciplinary boundaries. Among faith communities and religious leaders, numerous commentators have observed technological innovations in response to physical gathering disruptions. We outline a form of pandemic spiritual leadership that supports faith communities beyond digital innovation by combining original empirical research and a novel conceptual framework. Our project examined innovation through a comparative study of how faith leaders adapt religious practices during a time of disruption. While existing research on congregational responses to COVID-19 has documented sustained technological innovation, our research argues that technological innovation is only one feature of a broader catalog of innovative practices. To generate a trans-national s le, we used purposive s ling in two distinct locations, Pacific Northwest United States and Aotearoa New Zealand. Although separated by culture and geography, a purposeful s le across these two contexts illustrated how spiritual leaders in post-Christian contexts similarly responded to the pandemic crisis. The research involved semi-structured interviewing of nineteen faith leaders from seventeen communities we observed undertaking creative adaption. A trans-national selection deepened understandings of the dynamism of the unfolding pandemic and how limits, experienced differently in erse contexts, can be generative. Our study identified six organizing practices: blessing, walking, slowing, place-making, connecting, and localizing care. We demonstrate how the presence of God is cultivated amid local letterboxes and neighborhood crossroads and argue for an intensification of the local as markers of pandemic spiritual leadership. These interrelated spiritual practices express features of Michel de Certeau's “pedestrian utterings,” Joseph Schumpeter's “creative recombination” and Pierre Bourdieu's social theory. Working with Certeau, we describe pedestrian utterings as historic church practices reframed as everyday local practices. Working with Schumpeter, we describe how the six practices and the language of innovation used by participants express creative recombinations. Working with Bourdieu, we consider how disruption realigns social fields, including between in iduals, congregations, and broader communities. Finally, amid social distancing, congregations proved to be an anchor in resourcing this pandemic spiritual leadership. These four theoretical foci and six localizing practices provide a conceptual framework for future research into spiritual practices and religious leadership in the wake of a crisis. Confinements in space and movement can be generative of spiritual practice. For religious leaders and organizations, the research informs the cultivation of concrete practices that can encourage communities of care as part of crisis preparation. For scholars and religious practitioners alike, while pandemics enforce social separation, pandemic spiritual leadership combines attention to the local and the particular, as new forms of in-place practice emerge to sustain faith communities.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 12-2022
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 15-12-2022
DOI: 10.1177/25151274221144216
Abstract: The Lighthouse was a learning activity that offered entrepreneurship pedagogy outside the academic structures of higher education, in a religious context, and among grassroots practitioners. Over three years, participants passionate about their local communities were gathered nationally from across Aotearoa New Zealand. A weekend workshop introduced two artifacts: an Idea to Mission Opportunity Canvas and a Next Steps template. These were process-facilitation structures that through contextualised approaches, empowered participants to embed entrepreneurship processes in their local context. Pedagogical concepts of boundary-crossing and collaborative spirals of learning provides ways to understand the Lighthouse as a transdisciplinary learning innovation. Boundary-crossing learning mechanisms, including identification, coordination, perspective-making and transformation, inform analysis of the weekend. The mechanisms of identification and coordination provided ways to subvert traditional clergy structures. A collaborative spiral of learning provided a way to weave together religious resources with entrepreneurial processes. Participants felt empowered by the perspective-making of the Apostle Paul as an innovator. Participant feedback pointed to the need for a fifth boundary crossing learning mechanism, life-long learning.
Publisher: University of Otago Library
Date: 03-05-2019
DOI: 10.11157/SITES-ID430
Publisher: Brill
Date: 20-04-2021
DOI: 10.1163/15697320-12341646
Abstract: This article examines the contribution of Jesus as an innovator to a public world in need of change. Jesus, as the fulfilment of God, is interpreted using the insights of Josef Schumpeter who argued for innovation as social change through creative recombination. The potential of recombination is located in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible and then in Pauline literature, with ministry in 1 Corinthians portrayed as serving, gardening, building, resourcing, risking and parenting. These six practices are theorized as recombinations in which Paul seeks social change. Recombination is further tested through analysis of Jesus as a socially (ir)responsible innovator. An illustrative ex le, of an innovative Christian response to food insecurity, is provided to demonstrate a recombination that is socially (ir)responsible in challenging existing practices of consumption. Hence innovation is sourced in Jesus, as One who empowers socially (ir)responsible public formations that bear witness to God’s wisdom.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-01-2022
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-07-2020
Publisher: Brill
Date: 09-10-2019
DOI: 10.1163/15733831-12341677
Abstract: This essay analyzes Christian witness, applying a post-colonial lens to Drusilla Modjeska’s The Mountain to account for conversion and transformation in Papua New Guinea. A hapkas (half-caste) Christology of indigenous agency, communal transformation and hybridity is examined in dialogue with New Testament themes of genealogy, redemption as gift and Jesus as the new Adam. Jesus as “good man true” is placed in critical dialogue with masculine identity tropes in Melanesian anthropology. Jesus as ancestor gift of Canaanite descent is located in relation to scholarship that respects indigenous cultures as Old Testament and post-colonial theologies of revelation which affirm cultural hybridity and indigenous innovation in conversion across cultures. This hapkas Christology demonstrates how a received message of Christian mission is transformed in a crossing of cultures.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 12-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S13644-023-00524-6
Abstract: Organizations in changing contexts face uncertain futures. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the shape of the church. Such changes have implications for theological education and ministerial resourcing. In 2021, Whitley College and the Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV) commissioned research to clarify how a theological seminary might serve stakeholders. A posture of listening sought to understand how local ministry leaders envisioned the church and were responding to change. A mixed-methods approach was utilized. Denominational literature, along with recent ecclesial literature, was examined. A mix of randomized and purposive selection resulted in fourteen in idual interviews and eight focus groups (n = 47). Participants came from BUV churches of all sizes, with 15 females and 32 males, 15 LOTE (Language Other Than English) and 32 native English speakers, and 8 who identified as lay. All interactions happened under the denominational Code of Ethics. A range of questions explored perceptions of the future church and experiences of leading in change. The interviews, ranging in length from between 60 to 105 min, were recorded. Participants confirmed a de-identified summary for thematic analysis. Every denominational participant was unanimous that the future church would be different from today's church. These local ministry leaders were seeking different types of relationships with organizations. Seminaries would be valued as they participated with the local church in learning relationships. Participation included academic research, which was appreciated as an essential resource, notably if it undertook contextual social research and empirical research into generational and multi-cultural realities, church vitality, and best practice in leadership. Those interviewed requested equipping in innovation, leading change, mission as neighborhood placemaking, and faith formation across generations. A feature of the focus groups included the articulation of aspects of God seen as essential in the leading of change. One participant named God as patient, while several described God as creative in the midst of change. Another participant drew on a quote by British author and speaker Adrian Plass, “God is nice and he likes me” ( 2005 : 10). These named attributes of God indicate that local church leaders are working with grassroots theologies in their leading of change. A distinctive theology of mission was present among LOTE participants. This theology focused on nurturing a second generation who, in time, might contribute across cultures in neighborhood witness. A changing world presents significant opportunities for theological colleges and seminaries to re-invent themselves. Providers of theological formation have a significant role in resourcing the future church, particularly as they attend to collaborative and relational partnerships. Theological ethicist, Samuel Wells ( 2018 ) argues for the priority and value of “being with” imitating Jesus who spent thirty years “being with” humanity as a child and carpenter. This research revealed multiple grassroots invitations for colleges and seminaries to position themselves as “being with” local churches. Research partnerships in local ecclesial sites have the potential to deepen conversations between theory and practice. Cultivating teaching partnerships would allow grassroots leadership theologies to inform theories of leading change and enhance the ersity of voices in the learning context. Together, these changes point colleges and seminaries toward a renewed focus on local contextual theologies, empirical research, and grassroots partnerships. Such participation requires accompanying the local church, not as a problem to be fixed or a base for recruitment, but in a shared human quest to learn in change.
No related grants have been discovered for Steve Taylor.